


Persons of Interest

by kitlee625, Sarahastro



Series: The Darkest Timeline [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1410022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitlee625/pseuds/kitlee625, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarahastro/pseuds/Sarahastro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Sequel to <i>The Other Life</i>. After being taken by S.H.I.E.L.D., Phil and Melinda learn what it is like on the other side of the interrogation table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persons of Interest

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven’t read _The Other Life_ , this story will not make a lot of sense. We recommend reading that one first. Thanks to InsaneNerdGirl for encouraging us to keep going with the story.

Phil is sitting at his desk at work reviewing performance evaluations when a S.H.I.E.L.D. badge flashes in front of his eyes. He looks up to see a tall, unfamiliar man in a dark suit looming over him.

“Mr. Coulson. Do not make a scene. We need to ask you a few questions.”

His heart races. “Is this about my kids? Or Melinda? Is my family all right?”

The man acts like he does not hear his question. “We need to ask you a few questions at the field office.”

Phil glances around the office and debates whether it is worth running. He might make it out of the building, but not without putting the rest of the office in danger. He also does not know where Melinda and the children are. If they are already being held, his best chance of finding them is to cooperate. He stands. “Fine.”

The man is silent as he leads him outside to a dark SUV, where another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is waiting. They drive Phil to the S.H.I.E.L.D. office in San Francisco. When they get there, they immediately usher him into an interrogation room in the back. It is very similar to the room where they interrogated him when he came to get Jake a few months earlier, and he wonders why they have brought him back. He hopes that Jake has not been arrested for protesting again. The last time he had been there, the agents had been very interested in his and Melinda’s past with S.H.I.E.L.D., but it was all so long ago, he cannot imagine why they would want to hear about it.

They leave him in the interrogation room without a word of explanation, and he smiles to himself. Whoever is in charge here is following procedure to the letter. Leaving a subject alone to worry about the upcoming interrogation is supposed to loosen his tongue, but his S.H.I.E.L.D. training makes it easy to resist their tactics. The last time he had been there, the interrogators had been surprised and frustrated by how calm he had stayed. He hopes that if he stays calm again, he can show them that he is not a threat, and they will let him go.

Ever since Jake’s arrest, he and Melinda have been arguing about whether to go off the grid. They are both worried about the changes S.H.I.E.L.D. has been making, but they are not sure whether it is best to lie low and try to give their children a normal life, or to go on the run. Melinda thought that leaving San Jose is their only option, that it was only a matter of time until S.H.I.E.L.D. comes after them. Phil however hoped to avoid that. He worried about how being off the grid would affect the children, especially Steve, since they might not be able to take him to the hospital when he got sick. But now he is afraid that Melinda was right.

Hours go by without anyone coming in to see him. He forces himself to stay awake, wondering if they are trying to use sleep deprivation to make him talk. However, enough time goes by that he eventually falls asleep at the interrogation table. He has no idea how long he is asleep before he is awoken when two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents enter the interrogation room.

“Stand up.”

“Good morning, Agents,” Phil says, as if they are old friends. “Are you finally here to take my statement?”

One of the agents scowls. “You’re being transferred to the Fridge for your interrogation.”

Phil is genuinely surprised. “What? Why?”

The agents ignore the question. “Stand up. Hands where we can see them.”

Phil eyes the two men carefully, then slowly stands and puts his hands in front of him. They are both at least ten years younger and much stronger. At one time he might have tried to resist, but he has been out of S.H.I.E.L.D. for almost twenty years. Right now his only option seems to be to follow the agents’ instructions and hope that they realize that he is not a threat soon. “What about my family? Is Melinda here too?”

There is no answer. The agents slap handcuffs on his wrists and place a dark bag over his head. They take him through a maze of corridors and finally shove him in what seems to be the back of a van, although they do not remove the bag so he is not sure.

As soon as it starts moving, he says, “Is my wife here? Melinda? Are you here? Can you hear me? Melinda? Are you okay?”

He can hear the exasperation in the agent’s voice as he says, “She’s not here.”

“Does this guy ever shut up?” the other agent asks.

“You should see family dinner time,” Phil says. “My wife often comments on how much the kids and I talk. She’s the quiet type. Is she going to The Fridge too?” It is hard to hear them through the bag and over the sound of traffic, and he strains to hear a response. “Excuse me? I asked if you’re taking my wife, Melinda, to The Fridge as well.” There is no answer to any of his questions, and finally Phil lapses into silence. After a couple of hours, the van stops and the agents drag Phil out. When they finally remove the bag, Phil is in a dark room with no windows. The only furniture is a table and some chairs. They force him to sit and attach his handcuffs to the floor with a long metal chain.

Phil looks around the room. The floor and walls have a strange hexagon pattern. “Are we on a plane?” he asks.

“You’re being transported to The Fridge,” the first agent says.

“I know. I heard you the first time.”

The agents roll their eyes and leave. A few minutes later, the door opens again, and two new agents enter dragging another prisoner.

“Melinda?”

“Phil?”

The agents attach her handcuffs to the floor and remove the hood. “Melinda, you’re all right.”

“You call this all right?” she asks.

“You’ll be at The Fridge in five hours,” one of the agents says.

Once the agents are gone, Phil turns to Melinda and gives her a reassuring smile. “I’m glad to see you. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“How is everything going to be okay?” Melinda asks. “What about the kids?”

“Emily is eighteen. She’ll look after her brothers. And they have lots of friends. Maybe they can stay with the Yangs for a while.”

She gives him an annoyed look. “This isn’t like when we go out of town for our anniversary.”

“I know.” He swallows hard. “I’m worried too. But hopefully we won’t be here long. They’ll ask us a few questions, and then they’ll let us go.”

Melinda does not look reassured. “They’re taking us to The Fridge, Phil. They’re serious.”

Phil does not know what to say. “The kids have each other. They’ll be okay.” He wishes that he could reach over and hold her hand, but his hands are bound too tightly to the floor. He settles for giving her another smile, and this time she gives him a small smile back.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

*****

Ward is initially pleased to be summoned by Director Hand herself for his next assignment, but as he stares at the files on the two subjects that he is tasked with interrogating, he wonders if this is a punishment for something. “Director Hand, with all due respect, is this really the best use of my skills?”

Hand raises her eyebrows. “I know that interrogation is not one of your strong suits, Agent Ward, but I would hope that you would be eager to remedy that.”

Ward wonders if he should remind her that he was the one to get Vanchat to talk by dangling him off the edge of a building for twenty minutes. “Sir, I think that my record speaks for itself. But I don’t understand why I’m being sent in to interrogate these civilians.”

“Read the file more closely, Agent Ward. They aren’t just civilians.”

“They’re former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but they washed out almost twenty years ago. Since then Mr. Coulson has been working in middle management, and Mrs. Coulson is a housewife.”

Hand drums her fingers on her desk impatiently. “Before they left, they were two of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s finest agents. Their departure was quite unexpected at the time, and it came after a prolonged capture by Hydra.”

“Their file says that they resigned after S.H.I.E.L.D. learned they’d been having an affair. They left to get married and have kids.”

She snorts. “That may be what Nick Fury wrote, but many people suspected that there must be some other reason they threw their careers away.”

“You think they were turned by Hydra when they were captured.”

Hand nods. “That, or that they left S.H.I.E.L.D. to carry out covert operations for Nick Fury. Whatever the reason, I need you to find out.” She gives him a disdainful look. “Agent Sitwell will be working with you on this assignment, but you will have to handle the interrogations alone since he worked with them when they were still with S.H.I.E.L.D. Try not to make me regret my decision.”

*****

The agents return to put the bags over their heads before the plane has even touched down at The Fridge. The last thing Melinda sees is Phil giving her a reassuring smile before everything disappears in darkness.

She clings to the memory of that smile and the knowledge that Phil is all right as they lead her down a maze of corridors before shoving her in an identical interrogation room, this time alone. They do not bother chaining her to the floor, though she is still handcuffed with her hands in front of her, and she smiles to herself. Clearly they do not remember what she is capable of. She can use that to her advantage. As she waits for the interrogation to begin, she replays the steps that led from the plane to this room over and over in her head until she is sure that she will be able to retrace them if she needs to escape. Phil might think that they will be released once S.H.I.E.LD. realizes that they are not threats, but she is not going to cling to false hope. Sooner or later the agents guarding them will lower their guard for a moment, and when they do, she will break herself and Phil out and find their children.

A tall man with dark hair enters the room. 

“Melinda Coulson,” he says, “formerly Melinda May, S.H.I.E.L.D. specialist.”

She stares at him blankly.

“I need to ask you a few questions.” He is still standing, and he gestures for her to take a seat at the interrogation table. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

Melinda does not move, but she channels all of her hostility into glaring at him. Finally he sits and pointedly opens a file and starts flipping through it.

“It says here that you left S.H.I.E.L.D. because you were having an affair with a superior officer.” He pauses, hoping for a response, but she says nothing. “Now you’re a housewife.” Even with putting extra disdain into that last word, she does not flinch or react in any way. He may as well be speaking to a statue, except that he has the feeling that she is sizing him up to determine his weaknesses.

“Your last mission was investigating a Hydra facility in Eastern Europe. You were sent to protect your team’s scientists on a recon mission, and yet you managed to get yourself and the supervising field agent captured.” He gives her a significant look but she stares back impassively. “It was very convenient for Hydra that two experienced agents managed to botch a simple recon mission.”

At last he gets a reaction from her. A flicker of anger crosses her face, and her voice is low and dangerous when she says, “I did everything I could to protect my team.”

Ward tries to pursue the opening that she has given him. “I’m sure you did, but my question for you is, who was your team? S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra?”

His question has the opposite effect that he hopes. Instead of getting angrier or trying to defend herself, she seems to get calmer and says, “I love Phil. I did everything I could to save him.” 

He tries a few more pointed questions, but she does not say anything else, and finally he gives up. He only hopes that her husband is more talkative.

*****

“Phillip Coulson.” Ward sits down across from him. “Former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Twenty years ago you were a Level 7 field agent and second-in-command on an MCU. Now you’re living in San Jose, California with former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Melinda May. What I don’t understand is why two highly skilled agents such as yourselves would ever leave S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place.”

Phil looks at him almost pityingly. “It’s called love, Agent, but you probably haven’t experienced that emotion.”

“Unless you had to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. because you impregnated your specialist.”

Nothing can wipe the serene smile off his face. “You might not be aware of this, Agent, but pregnancy lasts forty weeks. I’m sure that file you have there has all of the information about our children, and if you count back forty weeks from Emily’s birthday, you’ll be able to answer that question yourself.”

Ward opens the file and makes a show of flipping through it. “We have all kinds of information about your family here, Mr. Coulson. Three children. You two certainly have been busy.”

“You have no idea,” Phil says. “When we were trying to conceive Steve, Melinda made us have sex according to a schedule. Sometimes we were so tired after chasing after the other two all day, we weren’t really in the mood, but she always made sure we didn’t miss a day. She’s very disciplined. Of course my wife is a very beautiful woman, so I never had trouble sticking to the sex schedule. If you’ve seen her, I’m sure you understand.”

Ward wonders how he ended up discussing this guy’s sex life with him. He tries to get back on topic. “Quite a coincidence that you left S.H.I.E.L.D. just weeks after you were both captured by Hydra.”

“It wasn’t a coincidence. That mission made us realize how much we loved each other. Melinda risked her life for me, and after we were rescued, we found out that S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to make sure we never saw each again. We decided that spending our lives together was the most important thing to us. Love really is wonderful, Agent. It changes you. Perhaps you could see if your programmer can add it the next time he upgrades your software.”

Ward is not sure how he manages to turn every answer into a declaration of love. After a few more attempts he gives up for the day. Director Hand is going to be furious when she sees the footage of his unsuccessful interrogations, but perhaps a few days of solitary confinement will loosen their tongues and get them to stay on topic.

*****

Ward is expecting the confinement to get to them, but whenever he goes to see them he finds the exactly the same as the first day. Nothing rattles Phil. He always greets him with a cheerful, “Good morning Agent,” as if they are old friends, and he can chatter on pleasantly for hours, turning every question into an opportunity to talk about his wife or his children. Ward pities the junior agents who have to review the surveillance tapes to see if there is anything helpful.

Interrogating Melinda is a completely different experience. Ward has been in to see her over a dozen times, but he can never get her to say more than a few words.

This time, when he enters, Ward opens her file and pretends to go through it. “You had a very impressive career at S.H.I.E.L.D. What I don’t understand is what could have possibly made you give all that up.” No response. “I mean, you gave up being a specialist, saving lives, for what - to bake cookies and make up a sex schedule with your husband?”

Until that point, May’s face had been completely impassive. Now she cracks a small smile. “So you’ve been talking to Phil too.”

Ward’s face twitches slightly, and he leaves.

When he gets out of the interrogation room, Sitwell gives him a look. “They played you.”

Ward grimaces. “I know.”

“I told you not to underestimate them. They were two of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top agents.”

“Until they turned their back on the agency to play house in California.”

Sitwell says, “Everyone was pretty surprised when they made that call. I was stationed on the MCU with them, and I knew they were having sex, but I didn’t think it was that serious.”

“So you agree with Director Hand? You think these two might be double agents?” Ward asks skeptically.

Sitwell shrugs. “You didn’t know them back then, Agent Ward. Coulson and May were completely devoted to S.H.I.E.L.D., and then one day they just ran off together to California. I’m not sure what to believe.”

*****

“Good morning, Agent,” Phil says. “I’m glad to see you. There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

“I was wondering why I only ever see you. Why are you the only one to question me? There must be other agents here, watching these sessions. Then I realized, they’re probably my old colleagues. People who knew Melinda and me. Who is it? Barton would never take a job like this, he’d want to be in the field. Is it Sitwell? Fury?” Phil notices a slight change in Ward’s face when he says Fury’s name.

“Let’s talk about Fury. According to your file, you worked closely with him. He was the commander of the MCU that you and your wife were stationed on.”

“I see you’ve done your homework on me.”

“It also says that he signed off on your debriefing after your last mission and on your official paperwork resigning from S.H.I.E.L.D.”

For the first time, Phil looks confused. “Of course. He was our CO.”

“He seems to have had a soft spot for the two of you. He even tried to get S.H.I.E.L.D. to give you a promotion to the Hub after your last mission.”

Phil looks surprised. “Promotion?”

“You were going to be promoted to a position planning missions for all of the MCUs stationed out of the Hub. But after S.H.I.E.L.D. found out about your affair with former Agent May, they had no choice but to demote both of you and reassign you to desk duty.” Ward gives Phil a long look, glad to finally have said something that threw him off-guard. “Fury tried to get you that promotion anyway. He argued that it would keep you and Agent May apart, and it would be a better use of your skills than some menial assignment. He went out on quite a limb for you.”

“I didn’t know any of this.”

“He never told you? You two didn’t keep in touch after you left?”

“No. Melinda and I cut ties with all of our old S.H.I.E.L.D. colleagues. You can ask them yourself.”

“Former Director Fury is dead.” Ward pauses to gauge Phil’s reaction. He seems genuinely surprised at the news.

“Was he in the Battle of New York?”

“He was involved. Were you?”

Phil looks at him incredulously. “I was at work in San Jose. You can check.”

“We will.”

“Do you really think I’ve been running secret missions in my spare time? That my office job and my family are just part of my cover? I’m out of the spy game, Agent. I left all that behind a long time ago.”

Ward closes the file and stands up to leave. “We’ll see.”

*****

Ward has been interrogating them for about a month when he is summoned to Director Hand’s office. When he arrives, he is surprised to find Agents Garrett, Blake, and Sitwell there as well.

“The Coulson children are gone,” Hand says as soon as he enters.

“Gone? Where?” Ward asks.

Hand purses her lips together. “We don’t know.”

“I thought they were under surveillance,” Ward says.

“They were. The agents out of the San Francisco office said that up until yesterday, there was no unusual activity. The boys were still going to school, and the girl worked as a waitress in a local restaurant,” Sitwell says. “Yesterday, they somehow managed to evade the agents watching them and go off the grid. Their SUV is gone, and its GPS has been disabled. It also looks like they took the gun that was registered under Coulson’s name.”

Hand frowns. “This changes everything. No ordinary teenagers should be able to do something like that. They obviously have been trained by their parents to undermine S.H.I.E.L.D. They need to be brought to the Fridge at once.”

“Where do we think they’ve gone?” Ward asks.

“They must have help from someone. We’re checking all of the children’s email accounts, but so far we haven’t found anything. We do know that the oldest boy was involved with a branch of the Rising Tide at Berkeley. They’re suspected to have safe houses around the country,” Sitwell says.

“Start there,” Hand says. “Someone in that group must know something about these children and where they have gone.”

“They might not be with the Rising Tide. The two boys are Boy Scouts. They might have gone into the mountains and be planning on hiding out there,” Blake says.

“Then take a team and search there. This is a top priority,” Hand says. “Agent Ward, is there anything that you have learned from them in the past month that will help us find these children?” 

The other agents look pointedly at him, and Ward is ashamed to admit that he knows next to nothing about the Coulsons that is not already in their file. He searches through his memory and pulls out a story that Phil had told him about missing a business trip because their son Steve was in the hospital. “Their youngest son has severe asthma. They’ll need to have access to places where they can get his medication.”

Hand gives him a withering look. “That’s all you’ve learned in the past month? Get something more useful from them.”

*****

Ward figures that out of the two of them, Phil is most likely to give him something useful about his children. The man does not seem capable of keeping his mouth shut, although most of the time he is either telling some cute story about his family life or making sarcastic comments about Ward. It is very hard to get him to talk about his past with S.H.I.E.L.D., but maybe by focusing the questions on his children, he can get some useful information out of him.

“It says here that your son Jacob got involved with The Rising Tide. He was even arrested at a demonstration a few months ago. What I would like to know is how he got involved with them in the first place.”

“The internet. You can talk to all kinds of people with it.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps his parents, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, helped him make contact.”

Coulson looks at him incredulously. “You really think that Melinda and I are involved in The Rising Tide? The truth is, our children know far more about computers than either of us. I can use an Excel spreadsheet and send email, but that’s about it. Jake actually had to set up the wireless router for the house.”

“So it’s just a coincidence that the son of former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents is now actively fighting against S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“It’s not a coincidence. Melinda and I have three intelligent, talented children. Under different circumstances, they could have been valuable assets to S.H.I.E.L.D. But instead you arrested us and locked us in here indefinitely. Of course now our children are going to dedicate themselves and their considerable talents to bringing down your organization.” He leans forward and says, “S.H.I.E.L.D. used to know how to harness assets. All you’ve done is turn three assets into enemies.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is not afraid of three teenagers.”

“You probably should be. Melinda trained them herself in hand-to-hand combat. I’m sure your file details just how deadly she is, but if not, there must still be some agents here who remember her.”

“I’m sure that our agents will be able to handle them.”

*****

It has been weeks since Melinda said a single word, and Ward is not expecting to get anything from her, but as soon as he asks her about her children, her entire demeanor changes. 

Her eyes take on a fearsome intensity, and she says, “My children are innocent. They have nothing to do with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

He jumps at the opening. “Hardly innocent. They’ve gone off the grid. How many teenagers do you know who can do that? And how long do you think they’ll survive out there? Tell me where they’ve gone, and we’ll bring them in before they get hurt.”

Her tone is low and dangerous. “They know how to defend themselves. As do I.”

She is silent after that, but Ward can tell that she is about to crack. He returns the next day hoping that a night with only her thoughts will make her willing to talk.

"Mrs. Coulson, I hope that you've had a chance to think about what I said yesterday. If your children really are innocent, then they have nothing to fear from S.H.I.E.L.D. The only thing you can do to help them now is tell us how to find them, so we can bring them in before something happens to them."

Her smile is like that of a feral cat, dangerous and predatory. Before he knows what is happening she has landed a swift kick to the center of his chest, and he flies against the wall. She strikes him in the head, and then everything goes black.

*****

As soon as the agent goes down Melinda takes up a defensive stance outside the door waiting for the agents outside the door to rush in. She dispatches them easily and pauses to find the keys to unlock her handcuffs.

Outside her cell she finds herself in a control room where guards can watch the video feeds from several cells at once. There are a dozen feeds, but none showing Phil. 

She has never been in the Fridge before, and she is not sure where to go next. Part of her says to run, retrace her steps back to the hanger where the plane must have landed, and escape. It is clear from the agent’s questions that they do not have her children, and she needs to escape and find them. Truthfully, she has no idea where they might have gone, and she is worried about their ability to survive off the grid without her and Phil. However, she cannot bear to leave Phil behind. She rationalizes that unlike her, Phil has been at the Fridge before, and their odds of escaping and finding the children are better together.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a crackle of static over the intercom on the control desk.

“What’s your status?” a voice demands. “You pushed the prisoner alert button. Do you need back up? Over.”

She freezes. If she does not give an authorization code to terminate the alert, a facility-wide alert will issue. She grabs a sidearm from one of the guards and shoots the control panel, then takes off running down the corridor. Halfway down the corridor there is an air vent, and she manages to climb inside right before the alarms go off.

From her perch inside the air vents she can see swarms of agents sweeping the hallways looking for her. She moves as slowly and silently as possible as she searches for the cell where Phil is being held. She manages to find another control room, but when she peers through the grating she cannot see him on any of the monitors.

When she reaches the third control room, she immediately knows this must be the right place. Unlike the other rooms, which only had one or two agents in them, this one has four, two guarding the doors to the cells, and two facing the door into the hallway. They must have ordered increased security in this cell block after she escaped. Sure enough, on one of the monitors she sees Phil, curled up in the corner of his cell, seemingly asleep. Again, she hesitates, wondering if she can overpower so many guards to rescue him. However, even if she tries to escape on her own, she is sure to face at least as many guards at every exit. At least she has the element of surprise.

She drops down onto one of the guards, dealing a swift kick to his skull as she falls. They are in such close quarters that they cannot fire on her without hitting each other, which gives her an advantage. It has been a long time since she did anything more than spar with Phil or the children, but she moves on instinct to take out the other three. For a second she thinks that she is going to be successful, but then another team of agents enters the control room. One of them grabs her and stabs a needle into her arm. Then everything goes black.

*****

“Good morning, Agent,” Phil says. The greeting is still the same, but over the months a definite tone of hostility has crept into Phil’s voice. He looks at the bruise on Ward’s face and says, “What happened there? Was your sparring partner a little too rough with you?”

Ward ignores him and sits down. Although Ward had doubted the usefulness of these interrogations since the beginning, Melinda’s escape attempt confirmed what the senior agents had been insisting all along - these two are far more dangerous than they appear.

“Have you spoken to Garrett lately?” Ward is unable to keep himself from reacting to that. Phil smirks. “I had a hunch. Something about you, the way you carry yourself, reminds me of him. Did he tell you that we’re old friends? We went to the Academy together. Back then he was the one having sex with my wife. Garrett and Melinda could barely tolerate each other most of the time, but they did have a lot of sex. Garrett was always mocking me about my crush on Melinda, telling me that she would only ever see me as a friend.” He smirks. “Looks like I ended up with the girl, though.”

“And it was worth it? Getting the girl was worth throwing away your career in S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“You obviously don’t have a family, Agent. It was worth it. I saw my kids born. I saw them grow up. I taught them to ride a bike and throw a curveball. And every night I got to go to sleep next to my wife.”

Ward gives him a look of disgust. “You made the selfish choice. You chose all of that over being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, devoting yourself to the greater good.”

“Being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is just a job. I trusted that other people would continue to do it when I was gone.” He gives Ward a look full of contempt. “You were supposed to keep us safe. To protect people like my family.”

*****

That initial escape attempt is only the first of many. She makes a dozen more attempts, but every failure results in more and more restrictions on her freedom. After a few months she is chained to the floor by her wrists and ankles. The chains are long enough that she can barely reach the toilet and sink, but she cannot reach the door. The agents do not bother interrogating her anymore and only enter her cell to bring her meals. It amuses her how terrified the agents always appear when they come in. After she stabbed three agents with her fork, she is no longer allowed silverware, so she has to eat her meals with her fingers.

A few months into her capture, May passes out after her meal and wakes up tied to a bed in a lab. The agent who had been interrogating her stands nearby to guard her. She smiles a little to herself. She has not seen him since she knocked him unconscious.

She has barely spoken since being captured. Normally she has no problem with silence, but the long periods of isolation have left her starved for human interaction. “Hello Agent. How is my husband?” she asks.

He flinches when she speaks. “Mrs. Coulson. Since you have been unwilling to cooperate, we’re going to have to try something a little more extreme. This is a new, experimental truth serum that S.H.I.E.L.D. has developed.” He nods, and a slender woman with long brown hair steps forward and injects her with something. She backs away quickly, and she and the other scientist, a man with curly brown hair, both regard her warily. “Now, I have some questions for you.”

Melinda stares back at him, but to her horror, she can feel her control slip. “Why would I answer you?”

He smiles. “That’s why. The drug lowers your inhibitions and makes it impossible for you to withhold the truth. Now, let’s begin.” He opens a file. “I found an interesting report about you and your husband. Your car was reported parked outside a bank in downtown San Francisco for three hours, from 7:30 PM until 10:30 PM. What exactly were you doing there?”

Melinda smiles a little involuntarily. “Date night.”

“Date night? What does that mean?”

“It was Phil’s idea.” She cannot stop the words from coming out. The memory is a good one, but the ache of loneliness is so intense that she can hardly breathe. “We had date night once a month. One of Phil’s colleagues said that married couples should have a regular date night to keep the spark alive.”

“Aww,” the female scientist exclaims.

The agent still looks confused. “How does that explain why you were at a bank in the middle of the night?”

“Phil planned date night. He thought it would be exciting to have sex on the roof.”

The male scientist coughs and turns red, and the female scientist stares at her open-mouthed. The agent looks uncomfortable.

Melinda tries to take pleasure in their shocked, uncomfortable reactions, but thinking about date night just makes her miss Phil. She tries to get the words out as quickly as possible before she starts to cry. “We brought some climbing equipment and a bottle of wine, and climbed up the elevator shaft onto the roof. We sat up there and drank wine and had sex. Phil didn’t bring any food, so we stopped for burgers on the way back. In-N-Out Burger. The kids love it, we think it’s terrible, but at least it’s open late.”

The agent looks down at the file and says, “There’s another report of your car being parked at Fisherman’s Wharf the same time a disturbance was reported in the area.”

“Date night. Phil and I took a raft out to Alcatraz for a picnic dinner. But the raft capsized on the way there. We lost the food, but we saved the wine, so we drank it, had sex, and then went home.”

The agent gives the scientists a look. “Are you sure this stuff is working?”

The woman nods. “I’m monitoring her neurological activity,” she says. “There is no indication that she’s lying.”

“What about all of these bright regions?” He gestures towards the computer screen. “What does this mean?”

“These areas light up when we remember something. This one is correlated with emotional states. It indicates that she’s very sad.” The woman sounds sad too. “I assure you, she’s not lying, Agent Ward.”

He scowls. “All I can get these two to talk about is their sex life.” He pauses, then says, “Keep her here until it wears off. Then give her another sedative, and the agent outside will take her back to her cell.”

Once he is gone, Melinda asks, “How much longer?”

“A bit longer,” the woman says. “I believe Agent Ward planned to ask you quite a few more questions.”

“I don’t have anything to tell him,” Melinda says. “Are they going to try the same thing on Phil?”

The man clears his throat. “We can’t tell you that.”

The woman gives her a sympathetic smile. “It sounds like you really love your husband.”

“I do. And our children.” She is not sure if it is the isolation, the drug, or the woman’s kind smile, but Melinda begins to cry. “They’re all I care about.”

The scientists exchange an uncomfortable look while Melinda cries silently but say nothing. Finally they inject her with something else, and she falls asleep. She wakes up back in her cell alone.

*****

“Are you sure you want us to do this? These people can’t tell us anything.”

Ward is firm. “These are my orders.”

“You’re just going to hear more about date night,” Fitz says, “so unless you’re looking for suggestions for your next date -”

Ward glares at him. “We have to make sure their stories match up.”

“We told you, she wasn’t lying,” Simmons says.

“You don’t know that. She’s a trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.” His voice softens. “You probably think she’s just a normal mother. But since she’s been captured, she’s injured dozens of agents trying to escape. Both she and her husband were trained by S.H.I.E.L.D. to withstand torture and interrogation. We have to be sure.”

*****

Fitz’s predictions are correct. Phil just tells them about date night, but in even greater detail.

“At first we tried normal dates,” he says. “Dinner and a movie. But movies are so boring. Romantic comedies are so silly, and those action movies are ridiculous, I mean most of the stunts they show are impossible. So I started coming up with more unique dates.”

“Like having sex on top of a bank.” Ward looks skeptical.

Phil shrugs. “I thought it would be exciting. It’s important to keep the spark alive.” He smiles fondly. These memories seemed to make his wife sad, but thinking about her seems to make him happy. “She said she could spark me just as easily at home -” Fitz coughs awkwardly at that. “- but sometimes it’s fun to mix it up. Plus, do you have any idea how hard it is to get a moment alone when you have three kids? Someone always needs something, or had a bad dream, or two of them are fighting.”

Because he talks a lot more, there is less of the serum left in his system when Ward finally gives up. He only has a few minutes alone with FitzSimmons. He studies their reactions carefully. They both look embarrassed but also a little sad, and the woman gives him a small smile.

“You heard about date night before,” he realizes. Neither of them had seemed surprised when he had described having sex on the roof of the bank. “Melinda was here, wasn’t she?” They exchange an uncomfortable look, and he knows that he is right. “How did she look? Did she seem like she was hurt?”

Ward had seen the security footage of them talking to Melinda, and he had given them strict orders not to say a word to Phil. They look at each other, and then Simmons gives him a look that she hopes can show him how sorry she is.

Maybe it works because he says gently, “It’s all right. You don’t have to say anything. I don’t want you to get into trouble.” He nods towards the computer. “Your equipment can tell you that I’m telling the truth, can’t it? I’m not just talking about our sex life to torture Agent, although that’s a nice bonus. The only things in my life are work and my family.”

Fitz and Simmons exchange another look and then slowly both of them nod.


End file.
